A Take The Record Along explainer

As we at The St. Augustine Record enter the fifth year of our Take The Record Along project, I thought it would be a good time for a little refresher.

We have a lot of new folks around town who are wondering what these photos are on The Scoop page. They often want to know how they can submit photos and how long will it take to get in the paper. Well, I have some answers.

First, what is this Take The Record Along project all about? This all started five years ago with a mini-redesign of the paper. The rail was added to Page 1, the section fronts changed and The Scoop page was added to Page 2. These photos were to be the main feature of the page.

Reader participation is key to this project. The concept is really simple. A reader can take The Record with them on vacation, have a picture taken and submit it with a list of the people in the photo and a brief description of the trip. I suggest keeping the caption information to about 30 words. Be brief.

There was no way to anticipate the popularity of this. The original intention was to run one photo a day, but as most of you have noticed, we have added a second photo because we have had so many coming in.

Some of the rules I want to emphasize at this point are very important. First, I can't run every photo submitted from a single vacation. There is no guarantee that every photo sent in will run.

Also, the picture must be taken outside of St. Johns County. We can't run it if it's in the county because the idea is to go on a trip.

Finally, please give me some time to get the photo in before calling to check on it.

As the main facilitator of accepting these photos, I know first hand how daunting a task it is to keep this project flowing. Most of the photos I get are emailed to me (the preferred method). But I have some mailed in and a few dropped off. The latter group has to be scanned in, which can be a slow process.

I run the photos in the order I receive them. The waiting period to get a photo in the paper varies. Sometimes it will take just a few weeks from submission date. Other times, like right now, it could take two months. This is important to remember.

We run the photos as fast as possible, but there is always a backlog. This is where one of the rules comes into play. Don't call about the photo until at least a month after submission.

Submitting a photo is simple. Email it to Ty.hinton@staugustine.com. Make sure the photo is large. If you have a photo program, make sure the photo is at least 200 dpi and more than 8 inches wide. If you don't have a program, just send in the original image. If there's space around the group, I will usually crop it. Remember to include a name and number in case I need to contact you. And names of the people in the photo is very important.